


Kindly Let Me Go

by Paradoxalpoised



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, Femslash, Fix-It, Swan Queen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-29
Updated: 2015-01-29
Packaged: 2018-03-09 14:27:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3253148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paradoxalpoised/pseuds/Paradoxalpoised
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma finds Regina in her backyard, not soon after she's stormed out of the Diner when she realized Emma has brought Marian back to Storybrooke.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kindly Let Me Go

 

* * *

 

"Be quiet."

"But-"

"I know why you're here, and why you need to be here." She takes on a long drag. She inhales and leaves it there for a second. An infinite second. Well that's what she's looking for but it's not working at all, is it?

She wonders how long Emma is going to manage to be quiet for. Maybe if she gives her a cigarette she'll shut up longer. Let her gaze at the sky for some peace.

She exhales. This tobacco tastes terribly wrong. Nothing compares to the scented leaves from Mahtab she started sneaking out from her father's pouch when she was only fourteen. People from this world don't know how to smoke. Maybe that's not true, maybe in the Middle-East they do.

"I fucked up."

Not even two drags. Regina sighs with a smirk.

"I can tell you're angry and… You're right to be, I did… I fucked up and I am-"

"I told you to be quiet."

"Yeah."

She takes another drag. She lets it out with a soft hissing sound between her teeth.

She looks at Emma Swan for the first time since the Diner. The girl is on the verge of tears. Goodness will do that to you, won't it? That and saving maidens in distress. From her own dungeon. From her own ordered death sentence, no less.

"I'm not being evil, Emma. I'm being bad." She looks up at the clear sky full of stars, and brings the cigarette to her lips again. "There is a difference and if you of all people can't see it then you have more growing up to do than I ever thought you in need of."

"Feels good being bad sometimes."

"It does."

"Regina, I'm so-"

"Shut up, Miss Swan, would you? Please?" She picks up a cigarette from her pack of Lucky Strike, sounds about right, and lights it up with a thought, inhaling that first drag of the cigarette she hands over to Emma.

"'kay." That's her skeptical  _''kay'_  . She won't just smoke and be quiet. No. Emma Swan needs resolution.

They smoke, though.

"Is this gonna be a thing?"

"What is, dear?"

"Being bad."

"I don't know. What do you think?" Regina chuckles. She can hear the sarcasm dripping in her voice, burning like bad tobacco and a missing glass of something she also snuck out of her father's study when she was fourteen. She had to be bad sometimes, to remember she was human, and she still was a person. "Maybe we need to get drunk too. Isn't that what people do? Do stupid things and then get drunk to forget them?"

"That's not what you do."

It isn't. She hates relenting the control, but she's not about to admit it.

"And how could you possibly know that, Miss Swan? We're not exactly girlfriends, are we?"

"I know you."

"If you did, you would be quiet."

All it takes is the count of a heartbeat before Emma explodes.

"And what was I supposed to do? Let her die?" Emma is on her feet facing her.

She's still seated on one of these comfortable armchairs she's always enjoyed having on the covered patio of her back yard.

"Yes! Yes! Yes!" Regina is up in her face, cigarette forgotten on their side, the untouched glass of scotch on the small table by the side of her chair.

"You were supposed to let her die. But you couldn't."

Emma seems more genuinely surprised at Regina's acceptance than at her admission of having the Savior consider murder.

"I didn't know."

"I know." Regina smiles softly. She feels one tear fall. Only one. "Even if you had known who she was, you couldn't let her die."

"I ruined your happy ending."

"Emma…" She takes a deep breath. "It's a shitty night, dear, don't make me cheer you up to top it off? Tomorrow, if I can manage to get out of bed, I'll teach you something."

"What?"

"That I am sixty-ish years old and you are only thirty one."

She feels tired suddenly. The weight of all these years. All these tries. She's so tired she feels she could sleep on her feet, standing. Or disappear into nothingness.

She's in Emma's arms before she can touch the ground. She smoked two and it has been years. She might be slightly nauseous, and it's nobody's business that she can't hold a cigarette. Well two for that matter, and her pretend glass of scotch.

Maybe she's drunk on sorrow, or she's finally just learned herself how to let go and give up.

Finally.

She'd give a grand gesture of despise and regal disdain but she's afraid she might throw up in the motion.

"Why am I feeling sick and you are not?"

"Because I sneak one in more often than you do. Of both."

"You're not supposed to be better than me at being bad." She chuckles. "I'm the Evil Queen."

"You scared the shit out of me when I met you there, if that makes anything better."

"I'll consider it, but thank you for the sentiment."

Emma embraces her. The hand on the nape of her neck and the breath against her hair are gentle and not at all clumsy. Regina sighs.

"I'm sorry."

"I know, Miss Swan. Now kindly let me go."

"No." Emma rests her forehead against hers, and why is she letting her? "If I let you go you're going to fall or kill me."

"As if I would ever kill you." Truth is she wouldn't. She's gone soft. It's not even because of Henry anymore, although most times she tells herself it is.

"I'm taking you to bed."

"Now, now, I didn't know you to be so forward, Miss Swan."

"You don't know shit about me, Regina."

Emma doesn't move. Forehead to forehead.

She wants to do something bad. She wants to feel free. Just like she did when she would sneak out through Papi's study at night, to go to the stables. He could never fight for her, but he always knew how to keep her secrets. Accomplice.

She nudges Emma on the nose with her own, daring her. Daring herself.

She ghosts her lips to Emma's. Warm breaths smelling of tobacco mingling.

"Regina, you're drunk." Emma doesn't back away, but her voice carries a concerned hesitation.

It's sweet, really. She hasn't had a drop. Idiot.

Regina gently pulls at Emma's upper lip, parting her mouth. She kisses her. Deeply and intent and hungry. She darts her tongue in Emma's offered mouth. It tastes of cigarette. Of being bad.

She moans. Emma's hand at the nape of her neck kneads at her, on her skin, in her hair. Regina trails her hands to Emma's neck and wraps her arms around it.

"No," Emma whispers on her lips, breath short, brow creased as if she's in pain, "not like this."

She wants for the rejection not to bite. Not to mean. She swallows. She must snap. Attack or surrender.

"Get out," Regina orders with the motion of pulling away from her.

"I'm not leaving you," definitive.

Emma lifts her up against her body, an arm around her back, another under her thighs. Regina still has her arms around Emma's neck. She hadn't realize Emma was so strong.

Emma walks them around the patio, to the back door leading in the kitchen.

She wants to get angry and demand to be put down this instant. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Taking you to bed."

Maybe there's hope after all. She can self-destruct. She can forget. She can be bad. Relief.

Emma climbs the steps of the staircase slowly. Regina is fascinated by the strain she can feel in her muscles. By the effort Emma is offering with her body.

"I can walk," she says softly to Emma's cheek, "I didn't drink."

"I know," Emma exhales through her teeth. She's flushed, her breath labored.

Emma looks serious, intent. She wonders what it is that has changed and that she's missed. Or has she. She knew Emma would come. She knew Emma wouldn't run. From her.

' _Not like this,'_  she hears it echo in her ear.

They reach her bedroom, the side of her bed. Emma's arms are shaking violently but she won't let her down. Mute.

Regina gets to her feet. She stays in Emma's space. She sighs.

"Tell me what I don't know, Emma." One night to feel sorry for herself. One night to be bad, to be free, to be reckless.

"I can't bear to be the one hurting you. You were happy. You deserve to be happy. This guy..." Emma's voice break. She's not looking at her.

"I'm not… It has nothing to do with the guy, Emma." She sits on her bed and tugs at Emma's hand to sit next to her. "I thought for a moment I was given a second chance, to have love in my life, to be wanted and cared for. So I… I went with it. Fairy dust, tattoo and destiny."

She's not fourteen anymore and Father is dead.

"You were gonna settle for the first thing that came around just because of-" Emma interrupts herself, she's angry.

"I've seen you and your pirate." Regina snaps.

"There's nothing going on between me and Hook, he just thinks there is."

"You must have made it abundantly clear, I'm sure."

That they are fighting isn't what quiets Regina so suddenly. It's what they are fighting about.

"I thought you were happy," Emma tells her boots after the silence has stretched.

"He's a good man, I wouldn't have been ill treated." She knows what that is like.

She hears Emma swallow. She hears her take a shaky but long inhale. Courage.

Emma looks at her, in the penumbra of her room, only lit by the moon. "I… I didn't say a word because I thought you were happy."

She's quiet because. Because.

Emma leans in and oh so softly kisses her lips. Only once. "You are wanted." And a second time. "You are loved." And a third time. "I have to practice at taking care of you. A lot."

Regina swats her on the shoulder.

"Ow!"

Regina kisses her too. "Idiot."

"What the hell?" Emma is clearly confused.

"Don't you ever take my choices away from me." Regina is serious all at once. Emotions fleeting on Emma's face and hers, she can feel them. She's bracing herself, to explain.

"'kay," Emma says. That's her  _'I got you'_  ' _'kay'_ , and it's good. Emma takes her hand, sparing her. "You're the brave one, you know?"

"And you're always way too ready to sacrifice yourself."

"What do we do now?" Emma strokes the top of Regina's hand with her thumb. Shaking.

"We brush our teeth," Regina smiles. Emma chuckles.


End file.
